Bursts at the seams with superb comic characters involved in unbelievably likely troubles on the Irish border

Pops with the erratic brilliance of a careless match in a box of fireworks

Our first comic philosopher

Milligan is the Great God to all of us

Even at a time when so many good and interesting novels are coming out, hers stand out as performances of real originality and extraordinary promise

Wonderful rites-of-passage novel... where the author's blossoming Sapphic nature leads her to eschew her mothers proffered favourite

It is very funny, with an Alan Bennett sort of humour, beautifully written, quirky and likely to cause much tuttutting in conservative quarters

This lesbian coming of age story set in northern England doesn't seem to have aged a bit

An instant classic

You'll find everything you need to know about mustering the courage to embrace your true self and live life without fear in Winterson's hugely engaging semi-autobiographical novel

A stunning novel that's steeped in black history

A mind-blowing political statement, an anguished cry of despair . . . a bomshell

The definitive African book of the twentieth century.